


You and I; We'll Make Nowhere.

by VenetaPsi



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Angst and Feels, Be Careful What You Wish For, Betrayal, Broken Friendships, Broken Promises, Brotherly Love, But also, Dream Team SMP - Freeform, Dreams, Dreams vs. Reality, Elections, Emotionally inept Schlatt, Fantasy, Fate & Destiny, Flashbacks, Friends to Enemies, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Late Night Conversations, Loss, Loss of Trust, Love/Hate, Main Character Wilbur, Minecraft, Politics, Post-Elections, Post-War, Pre-Canon, Pre-L'manberg, Prequel, Promises, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Redstone (Minecraft), Schlatt has many secrets, Sequel, Sociopathic character, The Water is Rising video, Trust, Trust Issues, l'manberg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26617942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenetaPsi/pseuds/VenetaPsi
Summary: Schlatt hummed in response; a slow, lazy sound, and his smile grew."Nah. I just wanted you to ask."Wilbur gave Schlatt an odd look and shook his head. "Alright, crazy old man. Are you going senile already?""Something like that," Schlatt laughed, unphased.
Relationships: Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot
Comments: 4
Kudos: 215





	You and I; We'll Make Nowhere.

"Hey Wilbur."

Wilbur ignored the voice, more distracted with the metallic cube he was kneeling in front of. He bit his lip and tried to make sense of the wires for the millionth time, not quite sure what had gone wrong. He'd planned the device, the coding, meticulously. It was supposed to work. Was supposed to raise the water level for their little game. Why the pumps weren't receiving signals was beyond him.

"Wilbur." The same voice, a tad more impatiently. Wilbur sighed and sat back on his heels, pulling the protective gloves from his hand and tucking a strand of dark hair that had escaped back beneath his beanie. 

"What is it Schlatt," He groaned, tilting his head to look at his friend. Schlatt wasn't even looking at him, for all his demanded attention. The man was sat a good ten feet away in the grass, overlooking the river bank. His ever-immaculate suit jacket fanned out behind him in the slight breeze, his face squinted as he looked out across the bright, sunny blue sky. 

"Do you know what they call me?" Schlatt drawled, and Wilbur suppressed a groan. 

"No, I don't," Wilbur sighed, deciding to humor the businessman as he wiped the sweat from his brow and stood to stretch. "What do they call you?" No reply followed, and he turned his head to look over at Schlatt once more. The man wasn't even looking in his direction; just sat there smiling out at the horizon with a pleased, knowing, smug expression. 

"Don't have another crazy title on your mind?" Wilbur asked, voice heavy with sarcasm that poorly disguised genuine curiosity. And maybe a tad of concern. Schlatt's mind could be both a brilliant and terrifying thing.

Schlatt hummed in response; a slow, lazy sound, and his smile grew.

"Nah. I just wanted you to ask."

Wilbur gave Schlatt an odd look and shook his head. "Alright, crazy old man. Are you going senile already?"

"Something like that," Schlatt laughed, unphased. "How goes your command block?"

"Nowhere," Wilbur snorted as he looked back down, hearing the non committal, unsympathetic, yet polite hum from his companion. Wilbur threw another halfhearted attempt at an annoyed expression at the suited man with ram horns jutting from his hair. "I don't suppose you could help."

"Nope," Schlatt cheerfully replied, popping the 'p' with a dramatic flare that would have seemed odd from anyone else. He turned his head, face morphing into a small, disappointed frown and continued more soberly; "I wish I could do more for you Will, I really do."

Wilbur isn't sure he quite believes that, but he was quite used to Schlatt nowadays. "I'll get it working soon," He sighed, giving his cube a small, gentle kick. He didn't actually have the heart to damage his creation. "Your patience is appreciated anyways."

"I could wait forever Wilbur," Schlatt hummed, tone back to that soft, almost dreamy contentment. Wilbur didn't need to turn to know the man was once more gazing out across the water. "Build your cube."

Wilbur smiled a tiny bit, knowing full well Schlatt couldn't see it, and rolled up his sleeves. Worst comes to worst? He'd rebuild.`

Perhaps building a game where the premise was to flood a plot of the world, the waves held back only by force fields that would  _ hopefully _ hold- wasn't such a good idea. It was fun certainly; but standing on his island in the sky, dripping and soaked to the bone as thunder shook the sky and rain poured down; everything almost felt a bit too real. Like Wilbur hadn't spent hours building the machine to synthesize this scenario.

Schlatt was somewhere beneath the surface. Still at their first build, perhaps, hundreds of feet below the water's surface. Wilbur gripped his shovel a little tighter and looked down at the waves crashing below, the water that had already consumed thousands of feet worth of the land- and then the siren rang out, piercing and ear shattering, and the water rose once more. Only inches below the surface of Wilbur's meager island.

Down, deep below, Wilbur thought he could see a speck of light. a torch in a bubble of air beneath a tree. 

Schlatt was nothing, if not for his stubbornness. 

"Come up, you bastard," Wilbur sighed to the open air. His voice wouldn't penetrate the water; in fact wouldn't carry at all, not over the deafening sound of the pouring rain and wind. But he said it anyway. And by a miericle of coincidence, he saw a shadow shoot upward; and he was standing when Schlatt broke the surface of the water. He was drenched, white undershirt all but see through, hair a tangled glob as he twisted around in the water, shedding the heavy suit coat that dragged him down. But he still grinned across the distance at Wilbur, raised his hand and waved as though they were meeting on the street, not in an engineered natural disaster.

Wilbur sighed and rolled his eyes, and waved Schlatt over with an exasperated smile.

"What's your dream?" Schlatt asked.  _ What an oddly poetic question, from you _ , Wilbur thought as he leaned his cheek against his hand, sitting cross legged on the dock overlooking the lake and the nighttime sky.

"My dream?" Wilbur echoed after a beat of silence, humor coloring his tone. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Your  _ mission, _ Wilbur," Schlatt lamented, reaching up a hand to gesture at the sky; the moon and the stars, and the dark, floaty clouds. "Your destiny. Except we make our own destiny Wilbur, men like you and I. So what is your dream? What does your future look like?"

Wilbur went silent for a moment, listening to the croak of crickets in the surrounding forest, the gentle lapping of the ripples against the posts of the dock. "I'm sure it's not as grand as yours," He finally said with a chuckle. "What is your dream, Schlatt?"

"Ah ah- I asked first," the man deflected, and Wilbur shot Schlatt an unimpressed look before he sighed and accepted that his companion was going to be difficult about this; as the businessman always was.

"My dream," Wilbur hummed, openly stalling. He'd never put much thought into it. He swung his foot, and the tip of his shoe scuffed the water, sending tiny droplets scattering like stars. "I suppose...I suppose to take my friends and go somewhere, I guess. A home. A place we can belong."

A silence settled over them. After a few seconds, Wilbur turned to look at Schlatt. 

For once the man's face wasn't open. It was closed and shadowed, darkened by internal thoughts, or disapproval. Or maybe both.

"No?" Wilbur asked, genuinely curious. "What, is that not a fit enough idea or something?"

Schlatt jolted, as though only just now coming back to reality, and turned his head to shoot Wilbur a winning smile. 

"It's a perfectly fine dream," Schlatt replied. "I'm sure you'll make something beautiful. You always had a talent with creation."

Wilbur found himself surprisingly flattered, blinking at Schlatt in shock. "Thank you," He answered, and Schlatt smiled at him faintly. 

It wasn't until hours later, when Wilbur was walking home, that he realized he still had no idea what Schlatt's dream was.

Wilbur sat atop a hill that overlooked the entire valley. His valley, people had called it, but he always felt narcissistic when he himself would refer to it as such. The sun was quickly setting, air beginning to chill, but still Wilbur didn't move, ignoring the cold. He felt cold enough inside that he hardly noticed anyways.

He tried to think back to the last time he had seen Schlatt before this previous month. It had been years ago. And yet still when he'd laid eyes on that man in his familiar suit, with his familiar smile, walking through the gate of his city...Wilbur had felt nostalgia. Despite that his old companion, his old...friend, was his opponent; Wilbur had been reminded of games and troubleshooting and pouring rain. Of late night conversations and secret sharing that he knew now had been mostly one sided, but he still didn't mind. 

Schlatt was open with no one, after all. Surely his half truths with Wilbur had meant something. Once upon a time.

Wilbur pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders, a shiver passing through him. He felt cold and... well just cold, mostly. But that chill had swept him inside and out, encompassed him, wrapped around his heart. He felt  _ grief _ . Which surely should be ridiculous. He shouldn't be  _ grieving _ a city. Cities came and went. Rulers came and went. 

And yet the shadow before him; of buildings and walls and flags- it had been his dream, once. A land for him and his friends. 

And now his friends were scattered. He had exactly one person still by his side, and the man who had taken it all from him, he'd once considered a friend. A close one. He had  _ cared _ about that stupid man, with his stupid smiles and stupid brilliant ideas and his stupid charisma of a god.

He felt betrayed. But not by the Schlatt of today, not by the man standing down there with Wilbur's city in his palm.

He felt betrayed by a ghost. An echo. A memory. Who that man used to be.

_ "Where are we going?" _

_ A finely tailored shrug.  _

_ "I don't know." _

_ "What do you mean you  _ don't know, _ Schlatt? Don't tell me you got us lost." _

_ "Oh no, we're not lost. Don't worry." _

_ "What, so we're just going anywhere?" _

_ "Not anywhere, Wilbur. Nowhere. We're going nowhere." _

_ Wilbur snorted. "You can't go nowhere. Nowhere doesn't exist." _

_ Schlatt turned his head and smiled at him, and he looked so content that Wilbur did a double take. He saw Schlatt grin often, but rarely did the man look...happy. _

_ "Then we'll make nowhere, my darling Will. You and I." _

_ Such conviction, in those words. Such certainty.  _

_ "...If you say so." _

_ An arm looped through his as they walked across the empty field, walking with no direction except towards the rising sun. _

Wilbur was fairly sure he knew now what nowhere was. Where it was. And Schlatt had indeed made it. In fact, they had made it together, as they'd said. Wilbur had crafted the place; a sanction, a city where nowhere could not exist. And Schlatt had come and reshaped it. Let nowhere in.

And with his city stolen from him, now Wilbur had nowhere to go.


End file.
